Rila: I live! :D So this was supposed to be a one-shot split between Ahsoka's POV and Padme's POV on Anakin and his becoming Darth Vader (because Florence + The Machine's song No Light is so flipping addictive) but it was all, 'No! I want to be a full fic!' and decided to run away with my brain even though I've got plenty of other fics on here to keep me occupied, not to mention the Fives booklet I've been meaning to get up here it should be here within the week I promise and what not...eh, oh well...enjoy! :D Also, never fear - though this will focus primarly on Darth Vader and Ahsoka, Rex will be in here - after all, I don't seem to be able to write anything that doesn't have Ahsoka and Rex together at some point. XD Beta-ed by the absolutely amazing Impoeia! :D
Disclaimer: I got to go Easter Egg hunting today. Whoever said you can get too old to do so lied! Even though...more or less, I'm still a kid - I'm still a teenager! XD Mind you, one who's legally capable of making her own decisions, but...technicalities!
Word Count: 745
Prologue
The room is not a cell — he's told her several times that she's free to leave the room — but she doesn't move from her place on the bed, legs bent and head bowed. Fingers on her knees, tips pressing against her skin. Eyes closed, she inhales and then exhales.
Meditation is something that had never been easy before, but comes to her now without much struggling; a search for tranquility that she cannot find where she is now. She wishes that she could talk to someone outside of this forsaken place, but her comlink had been one of the first things to go when she arrived.
Originally it had been to keep her from revealing her location and thus putting a crimp in his plans — but even with her newfound freedom, it still hasn't been returned to her. Her eyes open when the door does, a shadow falling over the sudden display of light behind the arrival. Breathing, a wheezing rhythm, fills the air for several moments before a distorted voice tells her,
"Time for dinner. Will you join me?"
The first few times there'd been a stormtrooper to retrieve her, only to be sent back alone with her refusal to eat. And then she had been dragged away from her room, forced to join him and his soldiers as though there were nothing wrong with it. His tone is light, as if it's a normal question, and this is a normal setting. He's even come to retrieve her himself, as if to placate her and make her bend to his will.
She doesn't have any intention of doing so.
She doesn't answer right away, vivid blue eyes locked onto the black mask that hides the shriveled husk of what used to be someone she knew — what used to be a man who she had loved. Not in a romantic sense, but still someone close to her heart. He's gone now, but perhaps not completely — because as the silence stretches on, her staring and him simply breathing — he finally breaks the silence.
The word that he says is so simple, used by so many — and yet, for a tiny moment, either by some sort of delusion of her own creation or simply to make her do as he asks, he sounds like the man he used to be. It sounds so odd, however, coming from the man that he is now. "Please."
She uncurls her legs, stretching her muscles before she stands and approaches. She stops before him, head tilted back. Even now, with her full lekku that reach to her hips and beyond and her montrals, grown to curve elegantly above her head, she still has to tilt her head back to look at him. She simply stares for a handful of moments more, and then finally speaks. "Tell me what you want me to say."
Because she holds no delusions that she is simply here because she'd be killed otherwise; or that he enjoys her company — he wants something from her, and she already knows that she won't say or do anything even before he speaks.
"Say you forgive me."